Last weekend, we got to visit some friends in Eastern PA. I love trips like this, so we took Rt. 30 for a bit, making sure we stopped at Laughlintown Original Pie Shoppe, and the Flight 93 Memorial. Rt. 30 is awesome when you have some time and don't want to give any more money to the state. However, we jumped on the turnpike in Bedford and took I-76 the rest of the way. We got to spend an evening and morning with the Bleiviks, a family who knows a thing or two about moving out of the country. We played baseball in the cul-de-sac, went for a 3 mile walk,
and ordered take-out from the pizza, wings, hoagie shop. They even bought Carrie an ice cream cake to celebrate her entering a fifth decade. Saturday morning we departed. We were scheduled to make another stop out east, but that stop was in a red-colored county according to the virus maps, so we turned around and headed toward home. Pete knew of some posh coffee gazebo on the way, so we had to stop to get a drink and support local business.
One of Carrie's family traditions was something I called The Great Sit. Around Thanksgiving, her family would congregate to Hershey from Northern Virginia, Eastern, and Western Pennsylvania. They would all sit in the vast lobby of the Hotel Hershey and catch up for days on end, just sitting and reliving the memories. As our kids came along, we realized there were actually activities right down the hill. One of them is Chocolate World. The ride is one that follows the exact same track as EPCOT's Journey Into the Imagination (not really). On our way home from Bleivik's, Pete found out Chocolate World was going to be open through the weekend. So we had to stop. It was a beautiful Saturday, and the place was empty. We jumped right on the ride, got our fun-sized Hershey bar, and went right back on the ride.
Carrie has spent the last 3 days working with Soren on his school-work. She has the best attitude. We know that our lives on Abaco at the start are going to be very similar to this quarantine time... a lot of family time. So we have taken this as a preparatory season. We've walked to the Elementary school, played frisbee, taken art lessons, worked out, played PayDay (which is a lot like real life. You can't really get ahead if you don't inherit $500 on your first turn).
Support raising is going OK. We've had meetings canceled for really good reasons, but that does not help our cause. We are very close to being 50% funded, but we foresee a stall in our making of partners because of social distancing.
In other news, Carrie's dad has been released from the hospital and has moved to Georgia for a time. He and Mom will be staying with Carrie's sister and family while he recovers from about a month in the hospital. Pete has been displaced from Geneva, as they have decided to go with the distance learning route for the rest of the semester. She, Carrie and the kids moved her out of Geneva for the last time yesterday. Pete was somewhat sad, but excited at the prospect of adulting a little earlier than planned.
You can pray for us as we learn to be in the constant presence of our children. We'll pray the same for you. Pray that we are able to figure new ways of making partners without having interpersonal contact. (Our support raising bootcamp, and previous experience tells us that personal meetings are the best means of raising support) Pray for me as I'm trying to discern how best to run a remote worship service, and Carrie as she is learning new means of connecting with her students. Pray for this to end soon. A lack of travel is really harmful for the Bahamas which is funded by tourism. The first Bahamian Covid-19 case has been confirmed, and the Bahamian government is taking similar steps to ours to #flattenthecurve. Let us know how else we can be praying for you by visiting our prayer page.